Worth the Wait
by melicitysmoak
Summary: On their first night together, Oliver and Felicity knew... The long wait had been worth it all. An Olicity AU: No Gambit, no island, no Green Arrow. Just two people destined for each other.


**WORTH THE WAIT**

 **A/N: Season 5 is finally here! I had mixed emotions watching episode 1. So, this is me welcoming what promises to be another exciting, action-packed Arrow experience, AND venting my heartache over the current state of Olicity, hoping that Oliver's "light" will still be waiting at the end of the tunnel. I hope you like this!**

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This was the longest elevator ride in her life. The irony of it was that, even if she wanted it to end at the soonest possible time so that she can do what she came here to do and be done with it, she still wished that the metal doors of the mechanical box carrying her anxious self to her fiancé's office would somehow get stuck and never open. She felt like it was better for her to be trapped in there forever and never have to do what she believed she had to do, even if it broke his heart and hers. What was wrong with her? Thirty minutes ago she left work confident that she could do this. But as soon as she pressed the button for the topmost floor of the Palmer Tech building, she started to feel dizzy and nauseous. Since when had she developed motion sickness?

In all fairness, breaking off an engagement is not something normal people do every day. It's not something anybody in her right mind would do without feeling like her insides were about to become outsides. Because that's exactly how Felicity felt at that moment. She knew it wasn't going to be easy, but she had already decided that it was the right thing for her to do.

Ray Palmer was a great guy. He was thoughtful and generous and understanding; in other words, he was everything that any intelligent woman like her would ever dream of settling down with. Being a filthy rich CEO of a multibillion-dollar company was merely a bonus. She and Ray spoke the same technical language, shared the same fascination for science and for solving mysteries, nearly had the same quirks, and they both had more than their fair share of embarrassing episodes due to their lack of brain-to-mouth filters. But most importantly, Ray was single. And he was there for her when she needed him most.

It had been hard for a talented woman like her, whose IQ test scores were off the charts, to admit that she'd been foolish enough to be in love with a married man, who also happened to be her boss three levels higher up in the executive chain. Well, technically, Oliver Queen had still been single when she realized that she loved him. The announcement of his engagement with Italian heiress Helena Bertinelli had devastated her. Coming down with a nasty gastrointestinal flu on the day of their wedding was the best thing that had ever happened in her life to date, because she wouldn't have survived beyond the processional of the said ceremony, for which she had been invited not only by virtue of her employment with Queen Consolidated, but also personally by the Queen family. After grieving for months, Felicity did eventually learn to accept her loss. She went for a year without seeing anyone, and when she finally started dating, hardly any guy had made it past three consecutive dates with her, and the handful that did, had not made it to her front door to kiss her good night. Except one.

She had met Ray through a joint project that QC ventured in with Palmer Tech, and the relationship that she began with him slowly helped her recover from the despair of losing her one true love. Truth be told, Felicity had never really gotten over Oliver all these years. She still loved him with all her heart, now more than ever.

And that was what she was supposed to tell Ray soon after the elevator doors dinged. He didn't deserve to be the spare tire. The longer she delayed the inevitable, the more hurt she would inflict on him.

The doors parted. She stepped out and walked into Ray's office. She confessed the bitter truth that made the winsome smile on his face fade. She cried, he cried. In less than half an hour, it was over. They kissed for the last time before she hopped on the same elevator that she had wished would get stuck earlier. On her way down, she was glad her wish did not come true.

Relief was an understatement for what Felicity felt as soon as she left Palmer Tech. It felt like the heavy burden of guilt had rolled off her shoulders. She knew the moment she accepted Ray's proposal that it was a huge mistake, but she lived with her choice anyway because she thought that pining for Oliver Queen was a lost cause. She had tried to forget him, tried to move on, but she couldn't – for the life of her – get the man out of her system!

The wonder of wonders was that Ray totally understood. He was decent enough to point out the obvious: that she shouldn't marry him if she was in love with someone else. She didn't name the man that rivaled him. She didn't have to. Ray had known all along – what with the countless times their casual conversations had digressed because she'd inadvertently bring up something that she and Oliver had done together, or something Oliver liked or said, as well as that one time when she had unconsciously whispered Oliver's name while they kissed just outside the door of her apartment after a dinner date. Ray had hoped against hope that his love for her would somehow change the way things were. She returned the engagement ring, and he accepted it, saying how absolutely fortunate Oliver was to have been loved by Felicity Smoak.

In Oliver's defense, he hadn't known that she was in love with him at the time. The first time they'd met, Felicity was an intern at the IT department of QC for the summer prior to her graduation from the accelerated ladderized program at MIT that allowed her to finish both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in just four years. He had already been working as vice president for corporate affairs for five years in his father's company since he finished business school. She had been busy coding and setting up a program for the accounting department the day Oliver walked into her office with a broken laptop for her to fix. Right then and there they had already hit it off. He thought she was physically attractive and intellectually stimulating despite her tendency to babble, which he admittedly found quite adorable and cute. But he had second-thoughts about pursuing her because she was six years younger than him and hadn't even graduated from the university yet. He didn't think it wise to distract her from finishing her degree and graduating with flying colors. He frequented her tiny office during break times, so it took him only one summer to get to know her fairly well and recognize that she was going to have a very promising career ahead of her.

An entire year passed before the two of them had met again. Robert Queen, Oliver's father and President and CEO of Queen Consolidated, hired her fresh out of graduation from MIT because of her impressive academic record, her impeccable internship service record, and her endearing personality that had left an indelible mark on the business mogul's psyche. Mr. Queen handpicked her from all the IT specialists in the department to be part of a small team tasked to overhaul QC's cyber-security system, and he put his son Oliver in charge. Unfortunately, Oliver and Felicity had been oblivious to the fact that the CEO had been playing matchmaker for his son, for if they had noticed at all, they would have been more courageous to act on their growing feelings for each other. They had gotten to know each other more while working on that month-long cyber-security upgrade, occasionally grabbing a quick lunch or an early dinner at the nearby Big Belly Burger with one or two of the other colleagues in the team. But when the project was over, the two of them sort of just carried on with the little tradition of eating out as friends. And friends they became. In fact, they had become such good friends that Thea, Oliver's sister, had considered Felicity as the female counterpart of Tommy Merlyn, Oliver's long-time best friend and buddy for life.

Another year had passed before Oliver came to his senses. It had taken an unforgettable corporate banquet for him to realize that Felicity meant more to him than just a very good friend. He was totally unprepared to see her in that gorgeous, blood-red evening gown that showcased her undeniably attractive and very female form. He couldn't take his eyes off her the entire evening. After just one slow dance to the music of a David Foster-Celine Dion hit song, Oliver had decided he was ready to take his relationship with her to the next level. "What better way to start a romantic relationship than by first being friends?" he figured. He had been quite apprehensive that she might not be interested in him in that way, but since he was sure she was worth the risk of losing a valuable friendship in the interest of courtship, he decided to go for it.

That was when tragedy struck.

Robert Queen died when his yacht sank in the north China Sea in the middle of a storm on his way back from a business trip in Russia. Oliver had to set aside his plans of wooing his woman for the sake of his mourning family and for the good of the company that his father had built and expanded for over twenty-five years. His mother Moira and his sister needed him most. Tommy and Felicity supported him, of course. He used to call them his "pair of pillars," the ones that held him up through one of the darkest times in his life. His love life took a back seat, and he buried his feelings for her in the innermost recesses of his heart. He needed to be strong and focused; he didn't want to fail his father and dishonor his memory.

All that time, Felicity encouraged him to persevere and assured him over and over again that he was ready to fill in his father's shoes. The night before his installation as the new CEO of QC, when he was getting cold feet, she gave him an adamant speech about not giving up, about believing in himself, and about honoring the dead by fighting to keep their legacy alive. After her speech, she walked up to him teary-eyed and, as if by instinct, embraced him in all earnestness. The next day when Oliver delivered his first speech as the new CEO, he had made his mother, his sister, and the Board of Directors proud. But no one else was prouder of him than Felicity Smoak, who at that moment in time had been awakened to the fact that she had learned to really love the man that stood before her. That was when she realized that her heart belonged to him.

But that heart remained unclaimed for another year. And longer.

Oliver hadn't even warmed up in his seat as CEO when the Board was forced to send him to Russia to commence operations of QC's subsidiary company there, the one that his father had been unable to carry out completely. One month into the job, he realized he had gone in over his head. He struggled with the language and the culture, and he felt so alone that he was ready to throw in the towel. His mother persuaded him not to quit, especially not when the family needed him to pull through. Moira had been holding the fort at QC in his absence, and wasn't really doing an exemplary job at it, too – barely surviving the corporate intrigue and power play with the help of a friend and ally, Walter Steele. Tommy and Thea came to visit and stayed with him for the rest of the summer; that had helped ease the burden somehow.

About a month after they had left, the subsidiary's servers had crashed because of some malware or virus, so Oliver sent for the best technical assistance available in the QC arsenal. Felicity arrived in Russia in the Fall of that year, when the leaves were turning yellow and orange and fluttering to the ground as the wind blew by. She worked on the company's servers and upgraded their systems for about two months. Oliver was grateful for her company, too. She helped him see the brighter side of things simply because that was how she was by nature – bright; she brightened everyone's day, especially Oliver's. By the time she left for Starling City, the IT department of the Russian subsidiary had been decorated with potted green ferns. Several female employees had had trendy fashion makeovers that included three-inch heels and sported unconventionally colored finger nails and toe nails. And of course, Oliver Queen was smiling again.

The time they spent together in Russia – sight-seeing on weekends, finding their way in and out of the Moscow subway, visiting historical and art museums, getting acquainted with Russian vodka on Friday nights – those special times had awakened emotions that had been tucked away for later because they had priorities to think of. One particular time while touring the Kremlin, they had held hands unawares and had stopped to pose for a selfie when an elderly couple offered to take their picture instead; the old woman had apologized afterwards for mistaking them to be honeymooners when she realized they both didn't wear wedding rings. That had been a paradoxical moment for Oliver and Felicity – awkward yet pleasant – but still, they had avoided broaching the topic until she left. They hadn't spoken a word about their feelings, which they both misguidedly hadn't counted as mutual. What had been mutual was the unfounded fear that romance would ruin their friendship. For the next six months, affection and attraction were shelved and everything between them was back to the way things were.

Exactly twelve months later, Moira sent for Oliver. The company in Starling City had not been doing well in the absence of its CEO, and greedy opportunists had taken advantage of the situation for selfish gain. Members of the Board and investors, who were not as loyal to Robert Queen as Walter Steele, had sold some of their shares to a prominent Italian tycoon named Bertinelli, who was poised and ready for a hostile takeover. Moira and Walter needed reinforcement, so they pulled Oliver out of Moscow and put his right-hand man in-charge of the Russian subsidiary.

Oliver knew that Bertinelli was a cunning and shrewd businessman. He also knew the man's daughter, Helena (they had gone to the same private school except that she had been two grade levels below him and Tommy), whom he knew had always had a crush on him. What Oliver didn't know was that the Queens and the Bertinellis had a long history of squabbles and skirmishes that began even before he was born. Bertinelli hated Robert Queen because he had set his eye on the Dearden estate, and that ambitious conquest had not been realized because Moira Dearden chose to marry Robert Queen. Apparently, Bertinelli sought to make a dramatic and vengeful comeback by taking over QC. Majority of the investors had already been bought out, and eighty percent of the Board had already been turned against the Queens. Moira Queen's hand had been twisted and forced to a compromise that would keep fifty percent of the company's shares in her family's name. She settled for a merger between Bertinelli's corporation and theirs, ensuring that the company's name would not be changed regardless of the merger. One of the costs of this compromise was Oliver's freedom, for Moira agreed to have her son marry into the Bertinelli family to make sure that Queen Consolidated would never become completely lost and that her husband's legacy would continue.

Felicity had understood why Oliver acquiesced to his mother's desperate plea. It wasn't like she had a special relationship with him that went beyond friendship. It didn't mean that her heart had not shattered to a million pieces, because it certainly did. Unknown to her, her heart had not been the only one crushed by the Queen-Bertinelli engagement. Oliver was just as devastated. Yet he was an honorable son with a strong sense of duty. He put his family first and vowed to make the necessary sacrifices to one day take back the company one hundred percent. Until then, he the door of his heart would not open to the knocking of true love. Fortunately, though, his true love didn't have to knock. She was already in it. He just needed to be reminded that she was.

One early morning two weeks after breaking up with Ray, Felicity was awakened by the ringing of her phone. It was Thea. Felicity sprang up from the bed and nearly drops her phone at the news. Oliver was coming home. That was what Thea said. He was coming to bring Helena's ashes back home to her father. Apparently, three days ago she had died of lung cancer of the aggressive kind, which had been detected in its advanced stage, and she had only been able to fight for her life for four short months.

Felicity remembered Oliver messaging her on Facebook a few months back asking for help with his computer and mentioning that Helena getting sick was the reason why he hadn't been able to chat more often (by "chat" he meant a few sentence fragments here and there, and by "more often" he meant once every two or three months). Oliver hadn't mentioned that his wife was terminally ill. Felicity was sad for his loss, but she was also upset. Why hadn't he told her this? She _could_ have been there for him! She _would_ have been there for him. She would have hopped on the first plane out to Rome and held his hand while he watched his wife slip away. Her heart may have bled for him, but it would have survived. They were still friends after all, she thought. They had remained friends even after Oliver had gotten married and moved to Italy with Helena to establish the new QC branch there at his father-in-law dreamed of.

Two years. She hadn't seen Oliver in a little over two years, except through infrequent posts of snapshots on Twitter and Instagram (rarely with his wife and hardly ever with him smiling). He hadn't come home for the holidays or for vacations. What would he really be like now? How has he changed? What would she say to him if and when they get to meet in person? Thea did say there was going to be a mass at QC, as the Bertinellis were Catholics, and the reason Thea had called was to encourage Felicity to come because it would mean a lot to her brother for Felicity to be there.

So she went. Felicity sat at the very last row, and when the mass was finished, she saw Oliver stand with his mother and sister by his side. He received the condolences expressed by the VIPs that came, shaking one extended hand after another, but his mind seemed to be somewhere else. He kept looking around and over his shoulder, expecting to find someone. She wished it was her. As soon as they gazes locked onto each other, both their eyes welled up with tears. With pursed lips, Felicity stood up and approached him. He excused himself from his mother's guests and met her halfway down the aisle. She had not yet gotten a word out of her lips when he enveloped her in one big hug. He kissed the blonde hair on the side of her head and squeezed her tight. She knew everything he wanted to say in that single act, and she knew what she wanted to say to him, so she locked her arms around his waist and squeezed him back. Nothing else needed to be said.

The day after they met after work at the Starling City bay area. They strolled and talked for hours, catching up on each other's lives, until the sun set. Felicity learned that Oliver had endured an unhappy marriage – a marriage of convenience for both his and Helena's families. His wife had been a shopaholic and a perennial party-goer who cared little about him except for his credit card, and that, aggravated by her dislike for children, had caused them to drift apart even before any kind of relationship between them could have had a chance to grow. Oliver told her how miserable his life had been, which was why he buried himself with work at QC Rome, striving harder than ever to make the business there grow. Felicity wasn't surprised; actually, she suspected as much, because she knew him all too well. But for him to open up to her like that, she felt like they had become more than just friends even if they had not seen each other for a long time. They talked freely and earnestly, pouring out their hearts as if they had never been apart.

In response, Felicity told him that she had just broken off her engagement, showing him her ring-less finger and managing a tiny chuckle as she spoke. Oliver didn't find it funny though, because he knew her all too well. He knew that while calling off a wedding would have demanded a great deal of courage on her part, it also must have caused her a tremendous amount of pain. He wondered why she would do such a thing, when she had nothing but good things to speak of Ray Palmer in the last year or so. Had Ray hurt her in some way? What stupid thing had he done? What had made Felicity swallow her pride and break up with a guy who seemed to love her enough to marry her?

Oliver caught her by the wrist as she gestured while talking at the speed of light. That caught her by surprise, so she stopped talking. And when she looked up at him, he looked straight into her eyes and asked, "Why?" She knew instantly what he was asking, but she couldn't answer him. She couldn't very well tell him that it was because she was in love with him – had always been in love with him – and that she was willing to wait for him for as long as it takes. Her silence was deafening, and while he preferred to have gotten an answer from her so that he could at least have an inkling of whether or not she had feelings for him beyond that of friendship, he respected her reluctance to open up more than she already had.

That, however, didn't mean that he wasn't going to take that leap of faith that he realized he should have taken years ago. Right then and there, Oliver realized that Felicity was better and stronger than he was, and he was going to follow her lead.

Oliver stayed in Starling City for another week. The day before his return flight to Rome, he dropped by her office – the new one, by the way, with her name and new designation as head of the IT department etched on the glass door. He congratulated her on her recent promotion, telling her that it was about time the top bosses realized her value to the company. He told her that he _needed_ to see her before he flew back to Italy.

This time it was Felicity's turn to ask him, "Why?" Oliver knew that his answer to her question would mark the single most important turning point in his life – a turn for the best or for the worst. But he had known for years that Felicity Smoak was truly worth the best and the worst that could ever happen to him on this side of heaven. So he replied with a tender gleam in his eyes, "Because I love you, Felicity. I always have."

Felicity gasped as her eyes widened in astonishment. She opened her mouth but she couldn't speak. After her third attempt, Oliver smiled at her, brushed his forefinger across her luscious pink lips, and said, "Shh… I'm sorry if I surprised you. But I've waited years to be able to say that to you. In the beginning it was because I was too scared you wouldn't say it back. But then I regretted not saying it sooner because later on I was no longer free to do so. You don't have to say it back if you don't feel the same way about me. But if there's even just a small part of you that would ever consider saying it back, I'm willing to wait… for as long as it takes."

"No," Felicity said softly, making Oliver's eyes narrow in confusion. "I mean, yes! I… I…"

"Felicity…?"

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't really need time to consider it because I've been waiting a long time to say it, too, you know. I've known how I feel about you all these years, and I just wasn't sure whether or not you felt the same way. And I've tried to move on with my life and forget about how much I care about you, and just accept that I will never ever get to spend the rest of my life with you, but I just couldn't. I couldn't marry Ray if I was still in love with you, could I? And you were already married, so what was I supposed to do? But now that your wife is out of the picture, then I guess we could try and see if we truly care enough about each other to really be together. Not that I'm happy that your wife is no longer in the picture. No! I'm just saying-"

Never had her babbling been as adorable and irresistible to Oliver, and just like that, without so much as a warning, in one swift, fluid, and daring move, he cupped her cheeks with both his hands and kissed her at last.

It was a gentle kiss, and yet it still sent shivers up and down her spine – their spines to be exact. Felicity's knees gave way and she suddenly had to grab his wrists to keep herself from falling. When Oliver pulled back just inches away from her face, he whispered, "Felicity… you still haven't said it back."

"I love you, Oliver. I always have." She smiled at him, eyes sparkling with glorious glee.

He kissed her again, and this time it wasn't chaste. It was eager and passionate, yet equally earnest and pure. His hands lovingly caressed her back as her fingers tenderly ruffled his hair. As their lips parted to welcome each other's love, they both knew that the long wait was finally over.

Not quite yet.

Oliver had one request. He asked Felicity to wait for him one last time. One more year. He told her that he needed to set things right in his father's company, to fulfill his promise to his father's legacy, and to secure his family's future, which soon would include her, and hopefully soon, their children. In his two years of stay in Italy, Oliver had discovered that Bertinelli's underhanded deals with big-time crooks in his country of origin had not always gone well in his favor. Coupled with his addiction to gambling in Starling and in Rome, Bertinelli had been accumulating a huge amount of debts, and his creditors – among them the dangerously notorious Bratva – had been getting more and more impatient. Oliver thought that he just needed to bide some time, get some more of QC's directors on board with his plan to retake the reins of the company, and then he would make a move. His plan was to work hard to boost the company's local and offshore profits and then offer Bertinelli a way out of his financial fiascos by buying out his shares and giving back the one hundred percent control of Queen Consolidated to his family.

Felicity didn't have to think twice. She figured that if she had waited this long for the love of her life, another year of waiting wouldn't hurt. She told him that she believed he could pull it off. She told him that she was willing to wait a lifetime if that was what it took for him to be completely hers.

One year later, when the Italian mob threatened his life if he didn't settle his debts, Bertinelli willingly sold his shares in the company to Oliver Queen. Oliver tied up loose ends in Rome, trained his best executives to take over, and in three month's time flew back to Starling City. For good.

Oliver and Felicity agreed that dating wasn't necessary. They were well past the stage of getting to know each other, and they certainly knew exactly what they wanted and needed from each other. So why wait? He proposed, she said yes. They skipped a long engagement, got married one beautiful autumn morning, and flew to Russia one the same day for their honeymoon. They made it a point to stop by the Kremlin on the way to their hotel and have their picture taken, and this time, they were proud to be photographed as genuine newly-weds.

On their first night together, Oliver gave Felicity her wedding present – a beautiful silk and lace negligee in the same color as her golden blonde mane, which he said, he had always found magnificent. She, in turn, told him that he'd have to wait for her to change into the elegant evening wear he'd given before he got to unwrap his wedding gift from her. When she returned, she joined him on the matrimonial bed of their luxurious hotel suite and told him that his wedding gift was, in fact, a secret. A special secret that she had reserved for him all these years and kept from him since their engagement. She revealed that she hadn't been intimate with any man before, and that he was going to be her first time. Oliver couldn't believe how it was possible for a desirable woman like her to still be a virgin, but Felicity told him that she had made herself a promise the day she left home for college at the young age of sixteen that she would stay pure for the right person, at the right time, and for the right reasons. She also confessed that she had known from the first day he walked into her cubicle at QC that he was that very person, and that she believed with all her heart that this night would come no matter how long it took. He cried, and she cried, but they were tears of joy and wonder.

As their bodies found pleasure in each other's warmth that night, and they two became one flesh, Felicity knew…

In the peaceful beauty of their first morning after as man and wife, bare backs and tangled limbs covered in sheets of pristine white, Oliver knew…

The long wait had been worth it all.

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 **A/N: So what do you think of this Olicity AU? I'd very much appreciate hearing from you. Thanks for reading!**


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